


Shilling Demons in the Shadows

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Flashbacks, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: When Stephan Strange is dealing with demons, he calls on Tony Stark for help...That might have been a mistake.





	Shilling Demons in the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt
> 
> “Is there any way I convince you there’s no monster?”

“There’s a tear,” Stephen Strange said, holding his hands up to caution them. “Whatever’s been sending the demons--”

“Do you have to say demons?” Tony complained, because really. Demons. 

Strange shot Tony a chilly glare. “--sending the demons through, it’s probably not intentional. Or, at least, no more so than humans destroying the natural habitat of lions. They’re trying to rid them from their own plane of existence, and this is a convenient dumping ground.”

“I thought you and the rest of the sorcerers were s’posed to be protecting the Earth from this kind of thing,” Bucky commented. He stepped in closer to Tony, putting one hand on Tony’s shoulder. Tony shouldn’t have felt comforted by that, but he did anyway. It was nice. He patted Bucky’s arm with a gauntlet, feeling the reassuring scrape of titanium alloy against Bucky’s metal skin.

They were both well armored and armed. They could handle a few… aliens. Demons. Whatever Strange was calling them.

“There are a lot of dimensions, Barnes,” Wong said, testily, “and we are protecting the Earth. That’s what we’re doing, right here, right now.”

“I thought I was doing that part,” Tony said, waving his RIFT device at them. Return Infernal Fragments Trap. He really needed to work on that acronym. But he’d built it to Wong’s specifications. To seal the tear between worlds in a manner that would safely keep the demons out, and not backfire into either dimension with infernal energies. “Just point me in the direction of where I need to glue up the works.”

“I’m searching,” Strange said. 

“I’m disappointed it ain’t big an’ glowing,” Bucky commented. “Or, you know, with demons crawlin’ out of it.”

“Believe me, Mr. Barnes,” Strange said. “You do not want to meet a demon, unprepared.”

“Pretty sure I ain’t never gonna be prepared to meet a demon, either,” Bucky said, fervently.

Which, of course he said, right before the ground erupted behind them, and a-- 

Tony would have to say, for a demon, it looked an awful lot like a giant earthworm to him, with a huge mouth, way more teeth than it needed to have, spiralling inward like some sort of disposal of demonic doom, and little tentacles all around its mouth.

Bucky yelled, pulled a gun and started shooting at it to very little demonstrable effect.

Demon, Tony thought. Repulsors up, unibeam spinning into readiness, Tony---

\--was grabbed by a hundred different mouth-tentacles, stretched and splayed--

And drawn toward the thing’s hungry mouth.

“Tony!” Bucky got a running start. 

Tony saw the whole thing happen in slow motion, the way Bucky was shooting, guns akimbo, at the tentacles that held him, screaming bloody murder, leaped--

And they were both swallowed by the demon.

**ii**

Tony found himself laying on -- well, it probably wasn’t ground, and what it actually was, he probably didn’t want to know that either. His skin ached, like he had a sunburn, and his head was in Bucky’s lap. Warm metal fingers were running through his hair.

“Hey there,” Bucky said, when Tony opened his eyes.

“I feel terrible,” Tony said, trying to sit up and failing miserably.

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it,” Bucky replied, helping him, supporting him, because that’s what Bucky always did. “I think the air in here is mildly corrosive.”

“Giant demon worm,” Tony said. “I really think Jarvis lectured me about taking on Jonah as a role model. Digestive juices or something.”

“You will find a new meaning to pain and suffering as you are slowly digested for a thousand years?”

“I need to stop showing you old films,” Tony said. “You pick the worst time to quote them. I was thinking more sandworms of Arrakis, myself.”

“I already know you’re the universe’s superbeing.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Tony told him. “What have we got here, how long was I out?”

“We have a giant cavern of worm stomach,” Bucky said. “And I can’t tell time in here.”

Tony blinked. Bucky’s sense of timing was one of the Hydra implants; the man could tell to the half-second what time it was. Normally. 

“On the plus side, we seem to be alone,” Bucky was continuing. “For some definition of alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno,” Bucky said. “But I get. A creepy feeling once in a while. I know no one’s prepared to take tactical advice from my stomach--”

“--I’ve seen the sorts of things you eat.”

“--but it’s weird, and I don’t like it.”

“We’re being digested by a demon worm,” Tony said. “What’s not to like?”

“I can’t tell which direction anythin’ is in, either,” Bucky said. “Tried carryin’ you for a while, but this place-- It ain’t a maze, it’s just _empty_.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “I can work with that, probably. What do you have in your pockets?”

“We’re leaving a breadcrumb trail?”

“In the absence of high tech solutions, low ones will do fine. Marker, tape, something. We need it to stay put, too.”

“In case something sneaks up on us in this vast nothingness and moves our markers?”

“I’m just sayin’,” Bucky said, “that it’s weird here.”

“Right, weirdo. Got it. Put something on the ground and let’s walk.”

Bucky found a handful of bullet casings, some med-tape, and a pencil. Tony had a multitool, two dozen microflares, and plumbers chalk. So, for a mid-level dungeon crawl, all they were missing was a fifty foot rope and some candles.

“Let’s start with the flare,” Tony said. And matching words to actions, he lit it, dropped it on the ground. “Now, we walk straight out from here until we can’t see it anymore.”

That appeared to be easier said than done; not more than fifty paces, they lost track of the flare, even though Bucky’s eyesight was on par with most birds of prey, and Tony had been, in fact, walking backward and looking at it when it vanished.

“Okay, hold up, let’s go straight back and see what happened,” Tony suggested. Scientific method. Observe. Experiment.

“You want me to run back?”

“No,” Tony said, slowly. “I think being out of reach of each other might be a very bad plan. Let’s just walk faster.”

They couldn’t find the flare. There was no smudge spot on the ground, there was no empty flare, there was… nothing. And it had to be there, they walked a small circle, but the ground was flat, barren, empty. No flare.

“What is this stuff made of,” Tony wondered, and stretched his hands, directing his suit’s nanites to make a blade. With a quick, decisive jab, Tony stabbed the ground.

The whole world moved, heaving, thrashing, like in the grip of a powerful earthquake. Tony couldn’t stand, and launched up into the sky, while Bucky rolled and tumbled.

After long moments, it subsided.

“Right, don’t make the ground angry,” Tony said.

**iii**

“Do you think we should just stay put?” Bucky asked. “I did some wilderness camping back when I was a kid, church group thing. An’ they always told us, if you get lost, stay put an’ someone will come find you. Strange’s gotta know we’re trapped.”

“Corrosive air,” Tony pointed out. “I can filter it through my suit, but--” He made a helplessly angry gesture. “I think we have to try to see what we can do before we just give up. And who else knows what might be digesting in here.”

“Monsters,” Bucky suggested, looking around. “I mean, I don’t know what demons eat.”

“I think demons are probably more prone to digesting members of the clergy,” Tony tried for lighthearted. “So, maybe my old Sunday School teacher down here.”

“You went to Sunday School?”

“My mom dragged me a few times. She said she didn’t want to be responsible for the state of my soul. I think I probably disappointed her.”

“If my soul needs to conform t’ the church’s ideals, I’m probably right there with you on the way to hell,” Bucky said. “But-- yeah, I don’t know that this is it. Demon doesn’t need to mean, you know God and Satan. Demon-- I mean, doesn’t that sound like it’s short for dimension traveler. This guy’s not from _hell_.”

“I don’t care what his local address is,” Tony protested. “I’m not writing a paper on demonic origins. I just want _out_. Pick a direction, and we’ll see what happens.”

For a long time, what happened was a lot of _nothing_. They walked, they made commentary from time to time, they squinted. Tony’s suit was still functioning, but his sensors were erratic and screwy. The heads up gave him heat signatures where nothing was there, and didn’t always register Bucky as existing at all, despite the fact that Tony could reach out and touch him.

Demonic energy does not get along with tech, Tony decided.

“I feel like there ought to be monsters here,” Bucky said.

“There’s no monster,” Tony protested. “There’s nothing. A lot of nothing. That damn worm was not even half as big as this nothing we’re stuck in. None of this is possible and I refuse to entertain the possibility of monsters I’ve not yet seen.”

“Do you have to see a monster to believe in it?” Bucky wondered.

“I can only fight what I can see,” Tony said. 

“I can feel them,” Bucky insisted. “I don’t gotta see ‘em.”

“What can I do to convince you there’s no monster?”

"I don't think you can," Bucky said. "when we're out of here, you can tease me about bein' scared. But right now, I'm just gonna keep an eye out for monsters."

Monsters, Tony scoffed. Aliens, gods, mutants… they weren't monsters. They were science.

"Kill you just as dead," Bucky murmured, as if Tony had been speaking out loud.

Did you. Hear me?

"You're right next to me," Bucky said. "And my hearing is top notch."

Tony clamped down on his thoughts, trying not to let sudden suspicion leak through.

Bucky was a lot of things. But he wasn't a telepath.

**iv**

A moment later, Bucky laughed. It was nothing like Bucky’s laugh, cold and cruel, without a hint of joy in it. “I gave it away,” he said. “What was it?”

Tony took several steps backward, trying to see if there was anything different about Bucky, any clues or hints.

What was it, this thing? Was it Bucky possessed, or Bucky _changed_.

Or not Bucky at all?

“Or is it your Bucky,” Bucky mused, answering Tony’s thoughts, “as he really ought to be, as he was meant to be.”

Tony raised a hand, gauntlet whumping in response, blast at the ready.

“Do you think you can?” Bucky wondered, just as Tony was thinking it. “Do you think you can hurt your precious Bucky? Even if there’s nothing at all left of him in here. Can you take that risk?” Bucky’s gun was in his hand, a magic trick that was no magic, but skill and training. “Don’t move, or he’ll shoot you right between the eyes. And I know, he’s a very good shot.”

“I thought you were keeping an eye out for monsters,” Tony said, nonsense words while he tried to think, tried to make a plan. He didn’t even know how to get out of here, much less how to save Bucky. 

If this was even a Bucky to save. And not that the creature in front of him didn’t know everything he was thinking, so making a plan--

“I am the monster,” Bucky said. “Or maybe… maybe it’s you. The monster. Merchant of Death. Highest body count for a single person in the world. Ever think of that? That this… this may be all you deserve.”

“Every damn day,” Tony snapped. “Which you would know, if you were Bucky--”

His gauntlet snapped up, the faceplate slammed down and Tony repulsored the Bucky-thing backward, ten, twenty feet, knocked him on his ass. It took him a moment to get to his feet, shaking. 

It was sickeningly familiar. Like Siberia. Like the bunker. 

Like when Barnes and Rogers -- no longer Cap or Bucky, but enemies -- had fought with him. Or he’d fought with them.

“Your worst nightmare, come to life,” Bucky said, and then Rogers was there, walking out of the mist like something from a World War Two morale poster, all big and bad and blue. “When you showed yourself for what you really are.”

“A murderer,” Rogers said. 

“I think we’re forgetting who tried to kill who, here,” Tony said, knowing it was stupid, knowing there was no way this could be real, that wasn’t Rogers, it wasn’t Bucky. It was something out of his own mind, drawn up to torture him. 

\--bucky wavered, flickered, he wasn’t Bucky anymore at all, but one of the many, nameless Ten Rings. Tony knew them all, the lines on their faces, their jeering laughter, and--

He was back in the cave, back in Afghanistan and--

Bucky was the one being forced to his knees, holding the car battery that was keeping him alive, shoved face first into freezing water--

“And you’ll just let it happen, won’t you,” Rogers was saying. “You think he deserves it. You never cared about him, never loved him. You were just hiding behind him, knowing--”

“That’s not true, and this isn’t happening,” Tony protested.

“You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play,” Rogers continued. “I know, I’ve seen the footage. Odd, how you keep living, no matter the cost.”

Beyond them, Ten Rings shoved Bucky face first into the water and he was screaming, begging. Sobbing.

“What do you want?”

“Did you ever think it’s not what I want that’s the question, but… is this what _you want_?”

“I wouldn’t--”

“But you are,” Rogers said. “You’re right here. Letting it happen…”

Bucky spluttered, coughed, and vomited. He was shivering and they let him fall into his own sick.

“You’re the monster, Stark. You always were.”

**v.**

One moment, he was passively watching Bucky be tortured, half convinced it was not Bucky at all, and listening to Rogers speak.

The next moment, he was Rogers, straddling a prone Tony, beaten and bloody.

“You could have killed me,” Tony said-- and it was strange watching his own mouth move, to hear Steve’s voice coming from it.

Rogers, his heart full of confusion and pain, raised the shield to drive it into Tony’s chest, again and again, until the arc reactor sizzled and faded.

Would Steve never understand how lucky they’d all been in that moment that Tony had engineered the thing not to explode-- the arc reactor in Malibu had gone critical. What little they’d found of Obadiah Stane would have fit in a thimble.

Instead, it flickered and died, and Tony raised his hands to protect his face.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Why didn’t I kill you?”

Tony didn’t even know who was speaking. Was he Rogers, pretending to be Tony, or was he Tony, pretending to be Rogers.

And Bucky, still, screaming, his arm shorn off at the shoulder, agony roiling in those beautiful blue eyes. The sound was making Steve insane, wanting to strike out at whatever had caused so much pain.

“You’re the monster, you are always the monster.”

There was something that Tony was supposed to do.

“You were supposed to die,” Steve said, and the voice came from Tony’s mouth. “That’s all you were supposed to do; die and leave us free.”

Somehow, Tony would have thought his legacy was more than that. _The last defiance of the great Tony Stark_.

_Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life._

He was Tony, full of fear, full of anger, full-- full of love and hope and desperate need.

Bucky--

“You’re the demon,” Tony said. Suddenly sure. He reached into his suit for the RIFT. “And I--”

“You’re nothing, you’re just a monster!”

“--am Iron Man.”

He triggered the RIFT, closing the tear between worlds. 

He was the tear between worlds.

There’d never been any worm or monster. He’d never been trapped in some unending cavern. Bucky had not been tortured in front of him.

It had been Tony, all along.

Just Tony.

“Pretty sure I ain’t never gonna be prepared to meet a demon, either,” Bucky said, fervently.

The RIFT went off, scattering light everywhere, lining the opening between worlds with golden glitter.

Bucky raised his left hand to shield his face, and dozens, millions, of little dots, like ancient, evil fireflies, swarmed out of him, out of Strange, out of Tony-- and flew toward the hole between worlds, drawn there, captured.

Returned.

A long moment, and then it was over.

“That is some next generation Ghostbusters shit right there,” Tony stated, just for the record.

“Who you gonna call?” Bucky asked, smiling. “Good job, doll.”

“Don’t call me, next time,” he told Strange fervently.

“Did you meet your demons, Stark?”

“As many as I ever want to see again.” Tony could find refuge, maybe, in the bottom of a bottle.

“They’re gone now,” Bucky said, drawing Tony into his arms. “They’re all gone now.”

Or, maybe, he could find peace, in the arms of his lover.


End file.
